I can do nothing about time.
Looking back how things changed
And lines now around my eyes
Like pencil marks on a page
Landscaped across the surface
Retaining walls and dams
Erroding with the constant flow of time.
Some things grow sharper as others dim
Sun seems brighter and meaner somehow
But is never out very long,
Summer can only hold so long
Before cold comes once again
To rein in all the green and growing
And hold it close to its frozen chest.
Thinking of those summer fields
Yellowed and dormant with thirst
A strong wind blows across the blue sky
Unseen, the rains that drive it
Coming with night to muddy the gold hills.
What happened to the dog barking
After a scent by the edge of the wood-
The bones of horses and cattle of farmers' past
Lie beneath the roots of the trees
And become their leaves
Turning red with autumn's insistence.
Long gone, those lives
Did they watch as I do now
As the seasons marked the age of the ones they knew
And drove them steadily down
And death became a familiar thing
Never seen but always around?
I can do nothing about time
But watch the changes
And think of the dirt
And the elements of former life it contained
Small particles blown in the dust that rises
Which quickly turns back into mud
With the fall of rain.